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1. The Impact of Mathematically Captivating Learning Experiences

   Dietiker, Leslie; Riling, Meghan; Gates, Miriam (January 2019, Annual meeting of the Psychology of Mathematics Education - North American Chapter)

   Secondary students do not often have positive experiences with mathematics. To address this challenge, this paper shares findings of a design-based research project in which a mathematical story framework was used to design mathematically captivating lesson experiences (“MCLEs”). We provide evidence that designing lessons as mathematical stories shows promise. That is, students reported improved experiences in MCLEs when compared to randomly-selected lessons. The MCLEs also impacted the students’ descriptions of their experience. 

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2. Designing and enacting lessons to promote students’ epistemic agency in middle school biology classrooms

   Akçil-Okan, Ö.; Tekkumru-Kisa, M.; Southerland, S. A. (January 2023, Annual Meeting of the National Association of Research in Science Teaching)

   Reform-based instruction that fosters all students’ intellectual engagement and sensemaking is possible. However, it is not yet prevalent across many science classrooms. To gain more insight into how to design and enact science instruction supporting students’ intellectual engagement, this investigation centered on understanding how to design and implement science lessons for promoting students’ intellectual engagement as epistemic agents who shape knowledge building happening in the classroom. We examined a middle school science teacher's design and implementation of four lessons that she did as part of a PD focused on fostering productive science talk in science classrooms. Our analysis revealed that her efforts in fostering opportunities for students’ epistemic agency were evident in both her lesson design and implementation. Her responsiveness to students’ thinking/intellectual engagement throughout the lesson implementations via principled improvisations supported opportunities for students’ epistemic agency. Her efforts allow us to understand how the design and implementation of science lessons with the focus of opening space and maintaining this space by being responsive to students’ thinking are critical for fostering students’ epistemic agency. These findings can provide implications for professional development efforts that seek to develop teachers’ capacity for reform-based instruction in science classrooms. 

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3. Narrative characteristics of captivating secondary mathematics lessons

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-022-10184-y  

   Dietiker, Leslie; Singh, Rashmi; Riling, Meghan; Nieves, Hector I.; Barno, Erin (January 2022, Educational Studies in Mathematics)

   Why do some mathematics lessons captivate high school students and others not? This study explores this question by comparing how the content unfolds in the lessons that students rated highest with respect to their aesthetic affordances (e.g., using terms like “intriguing,” “surprising”) with those the same students rated lowest with respect to their aesthetic affordances (e.g., “just ok,” “dull”). Using a framework that interprets the unfolding content across a lesson as a mathematical story, we examine how some lessons can provoke curiosity or enable surprise. We identify eight characteristics that distinguish captivating lessons and show how some, such as the average number of questions under consideration at any point in the lesson, are strongly related to student aesthetic experiences. In addition, the lessons that students described as more interesting included more instances of misdirection, such as when students’ false assumptions provide opportunities for surprising results. These findings point to the characteristics of future lesson designs that could enable more students to experience curiosity and wonder in secondary mathematics classrooms. 

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4. An Exploration of a Mathematics Teachers Concerns Enacting Project-Based Instruction.

   Shockey, Tod (April 2020, SITE)

   null (Ed.)

   We present a case of one teacher’s engagement in project-based learning for algebra I students. This teacher was a member of a cohort of mathematics teachers and career technical educators who participated in a two-week intensive summer institute investigating autonomous vehicles. During the academic year, the follow up support for these educators includes classroom support and monthly meetings where teachers give a formal presentation on their lessons. This paper presents the first of nine presentations that will be given by the mathematics educators during the 2020-2021 academic year. While her students loved the lesson, she reveals that the lesson will have to serve as an algebra I curriculum add-on as she does not perceive that this activity will adequately prepare her students for the state mandated algebra I examination. 

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5. A mixed-method cluster analysis of physical computing and robotics integration in middle-grade math lesson plans

   https://doi.org/10.1016/S0360-1315(22)00206-8  

   Zha, S.; Jin, Y.; Wheeler, R.; Bosarge, E. (December 2022, Computers & Education)

   This study analyzed 281 lesson plans collected from the producers’ websites of 12 educational physical computing and robotics (ePCR) devices. We extracted and coded five variables from each lesson. They were ePCR functionality, coding skills, computational thinking skills, math knowledge, and activity design. First, a two-step cluster analysis was administered to find how three ePCR-related knowledge: ePCR functionality, coding skills, and computational thinking skills, were integrated to teach students ePCR technology in middle-grade math lessons. Results showed three types of lesson plans, including lessons to use basic ePCR functionality to teach students lower-level CT skills, lessons to teach students basic to intermediate coding skills, and lessons to use the technology at the advanced level. Next, we applied the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework and conducted a second two-step cluster analysis to identify how the technology (ePCR technology), content (math knowledge), and pedagogy (activity design) were integrated into those lesson plans. Results suggested ten clusters of lesson plans with distinct features. We summarized those ten lesson clusters into five categories: 1) ePCR technology lessons, 2) transdisciplinary problem-based learning lessons, 3) technology-assisted lessons, 4) lessons without real-world connections, and 5) lessons integrating middle-grade math learning into ePCR projects. Implications for educators and researchers were discussed at the end of the article. 

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